Closed Circle
by Kryal
Summary: It always begins the same way, happens the same way, ends the same way. Only his viewpoint changes. The Uchiha Massacre. Be warned, this is NOT a happy story.


**CLOSED CIRCLE**

_It always begins the same way, happens the same way, ends the same way. Only his viewpoint changes_.

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_Disclaimer: They're not mine, and right now, I think I'm glad that's the case._

_I do not normally write angst. I prefer a wry, almost realist and yet just a little optimistic tone in my stories. But sometimes an idea grabs on and will not let go. Thus this was written._

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"Sasuke… Don't come in…" 

Strange that it always _begins_ there.

Itachi was less theatrical with his jutsu, that first time. There had been no dramatically declared time limit – just the meeting of eyes, disinterested wheeled scarlet and teary black. Only long, obsessive contemplation after the fact (he knew it was obsessive, it hurt, he didn't want to think about it, he couldn't help thinking about it) had produced the eventual conclusion it had lasted at least twenty-four hours. Perhaps longer.

Mental hours, at least. In the real world, the physical world, it couldn't even have lasted a full minute.

Twenty-four hours. One thousand, four hundred forty minutes. Sasuke estimated that the entire massacre, start to finish, had taken all of forty-five minutes, maybe less. Which meant living through those same forty-five (or maybe less) minutes over and over again, thirty-two times.

Except that Itachi was better than that. Itachi was _creative_. Itachi preferred a more personal touch.

Time and time again, Sasuke ran. From the moment he saw that dark figure on the telephone pole (was that Itachi? But it couldn't be. Itachi would never be so careless as to be seen, least of all by his barely-a-student little brother), through the darkened streets, into that dark and bloody room, over and over again.

But not always.

Once, he was Uchiha Masaki, coming in from a late-night patrol. It was over in seconds, he'd never even known there was danger, he was the first to fall, a kunai slipping right through the soft underside of the jaw, through the mouth and palate and the brain. But even though Uchiha Masaki had died instantly, Sasuke was trapped, watching, watching from inside Masaki's corpse, as Itachi calmly retrieved the kunai and began efficiently going from house to house. There weren't even any screams, or if there were, Sasuke – Masaki couldn't hear them. But eventually someone caught on and it came to fighting, and he could do nothing but lie there and watch, until Itachi was gone from sight.

And again the crouching shadow against the moon, and again the bloody street, and again…

Then he was Uchiha Sekken, newly promoted to the police force, out for a celebratory night on the town with his friends. Sekken's death was fast, but he knew what was coming. They'd stumbled on Itachi's bloody work, and Sekken had tried to fight, but he was the second to go down, and he fell right on top of his dead friend, still not quite dead, although he couldn't scream because his throat had been cut out, and he could do nothing but watch and curse Itachi and himself and everything in his head as the last two of the group were just as quickly cut down. Then Itachi moved on, leaving the four friends lying together in a puddle of mingled blood.

And then he was just standing by, watching, as each one bled and fell and died.

Then he might be Uchiha Saya, only nine months old, left for the night with her grandparents because her mother had a patrol and her father was in the hospital, and she just sat and stared as Itachi briskly eliminated the old couple (Sasuke recognized them, the old woman who always asked him how his day was when he ran by their _senbei_ shop on the main street, the old man who laughed and gave him one for free if he came by when they were opening shop). She was little, she didn't understand death, she just knew that she didn't like the smell of blood and she was scared and the dark shape with the shiny red eyes was coming at her and she didn't know why, didn't understand what was going on even when he pulled her little head back and cleanly slit her throat (but Sasuke knew, and he was scared, and he couldn't do anything to help her, help them, help _anyone_).

And one by one, he went through them all, he was them or he watched them as they fell and died.

And sometimes Itachi reached farther back, and Sasuke's mother was standing in the kitchen and smiling, "But here in the kitchen, when we talk, it's always about you," and then Itachi was sliding his sword through their mother's stomach, as easily as if he were slicing a fish for dinner. No build-up there, no memory of how it had happened, how Itachi had gotten in, but there'd been blood _everywhere_ so she must have put up one hell of a fight, like she'd taught them both to, because as patient and sweet as she was Mikoto was a jounin and an Uchiha and no one brought her down easily, even if he was her own son. Their father was standing on the dock, his back to Sasuke but finally saying those words Sasuke had always wanted to hear, and then he was slumping forward over their mother's body and Itachi was still as expressionless as he was when he was listening to a mission's parameters.

And then he'd be back to running through bloody streets, dashing into the house, and even as Sasuke was panicking (What is this? What's going on?) the other Sasuke, the one who remembered, knew what would come next but didn't know what the next cycle in this endless not-quite repeating hell would be.

And it happened over, and over, and over again, little changes, different viewpoints but always the same results.

And then the worst, and he was Itachi himself, cutting down the familiar faces, washing the streets in blood, and even though he didn't know what Itachi was doing and thinking, it was just as if his own hands were doing it no matter what his mind screamed so it didn't matter anyway. And worst yet was the fact that his mind isn't screaming more, that the horror of it all had numbed him.

Worst of all when he – Itachi reached their house and everything faded out for an instant, to fade back in with him (Itachi) standing over their parents with a bloody sword in hand, and he didn't know if Itachi for some strange reason spared him from seeing those deaths (hadn't he seen them die before, he knew he had and yet he couldn't bring himself to remember), or if he'd just become _so_ numb to it all that he hadn't even noticed the last two kills.

And then he heard the small footsteps outside heavy with panic and his own voice shouting, and his lips curved into a faint smile as he said, "Sasuke. Don't come in," and that wasn't how it went, was it? And then the doors opened anyway and he saw himself come through and see the blood on the floor and slump down with shock.

And suddenly he was there, sitting on the floor, and through the shock and the weakness and all of it he knew that it was over, it was _done_, and even as he tried to charge his invincible brother, a small part of him wanted to grab and hold on and cry and thank Itachi for not leaving him in that hell forever.

_C-----L-----O-----S-----E-----D-----C-----I-----R-----C-----L-----E_

Years have passed, but Sasuke doesn't forget. He can't forget. His memory was always very visual and the images of that night are burned into his dreams. Sometimes he wonders how jaded he's become, that he sleeps through those dreams anyway. He doesn't bother questioning it, however; he needs the sleep, and at least this way he doesn't have to depend on drugs to get it (they gave him too many after the massacre, they didn't understand that he needed to be awake, to move, to be in his own body and not repeating the actions of others as they were killed). And he values them because they mean he remembers.

Although sometimes he wonders. Sasuke knows that memories can lie, and so can Itachi. His memories are so tied into that genjutsu that Itachi could have changed them as much as he pleased and Sasuke would never, could never know.

But it's strange. Although what haunts his waking days are his brother's words after he awakened from the genjutsu, his dreams are different. They always begin exactly where they end – approaching the door, "Sasuke. Don't come in…" and opening it anyway.

Then the circle is closed, and starts again.

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_A.N._ _I got the idea for _Closed Circle _some time ago, and started writing it, only to come up short half-way. (This was not exactly a story that flowed trippingly from the fingers.) But the idea itself kept haunting me. Finally, my discussions with Amarisee gave me the impetus to pull it out and actually _write _it. I hope – I truly, truly hope – that this is sufficient catharsis, and that now it will leave me be._

_The title of this story initially only referred to the idea that Sasuke's nightmares begin and end on that one line, but I've since learned a bit more. Setting aside _itachi-gokko _(a Japanese phrase that literally means _weasel-game_, but idiomatically means _vicious circle_), apparently in Buddhist mysticism one should not close a circle completely. A closed circle means no room for growth (and may also connect to being trapped in the karmic wheel). The correlation with that and Sasuke's emotional state was… somewhat disturbing._

_For the record, by the way. I tried to find an actual time set by Itachi when he uses his jutsu on Sasuke on the night of the massacre, but I couldn't find any. So, I guessed._


End file.
